The Funeral: Lover's Quilt #3
Artist:
Faith Ringgold
(American, 1930 - 2024)
Place made:United States
Date: 1986
Dimensions:
57 x 76 in. (144.8 x 193 cm)
Credit Line: San Antonio Museum of Art, purchased with the American Art Acquisition Fund
Object number: 2006.7
Signed: Lower right
Copyright: © Faith Ringgold / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Inscribed: Upper left:
THE FUNERAL: LOVER'S QUILT #3
We were on our way to Christmas dinner at Larry and Martha's new home. The twins went on ahead with them. We took the long way through Lover's Lane. There was some threatening family business to discuss and neither of us wanted to get there too soon. Larry was going to offer Luther half of his land to build a summer home and weekend retreat away from the parish in the city. Martha was against it. "Two brothers shouldn't live so close together. It will cause trouble in our families," she said.
2. I agreed. But the men were thinking the twins would enjoy being close to their aunt and uncle and that the city was becoming a dangerous place to raise two boys. Nobody ever mentioned me. They never did. I was just Reverend Luther's wife and as such I had a lot of work to do in the church. The Sunday school, the choir and the Mission Society. All of this kept me out of the house and the boys might suffer from lack of supervision as they grew older.
3. But living near Martha and Larry would place an undo strain on our family relations and in time our secret would get out. And Larry, cool as he was, would surely slip and look at me in that way, or do something that would appear suspicious. Martha knew anyway. And if we lived together on their land one day she would say something and then Luther would know too.
4. Martha was sick and needed someone to help her. Luther's family was close-mouthed with family matters so I didn't press him with what she had. O.K. Martha is sick and Reverend Campbell and Ma Campbell are too old to help much. And Martha's mother and father are dead. All she has in the world is Larry and us. We have to help her. But not this way. Martha was the one person in the world we could not afford to live near.
Lower left:
5. I could hardly stand to be around her at all. I knew she knew the twins were Larry's. That's what she was trying to tell me when I asked her why she cried so pitifully at our wedding. She said it was because Larry was unfaithful to her and Luther would be unfaithful to me too. That was the same as saying, "You'll get yours!"
6. When I was pregnant with the twins, Martha used to say Larry had morning sickness. "It's just sympathy,: she'd say. "Larry loves you and Luther so much he feels all your pain," And then she too started to have morning sickness, and thereafter spent most of her days in bed making clothes for the babies.
7. When they were born I didn't have to buy anything even though they were twins and we expected only one baby, we had clothes enough for two. She had the twins staying over night with her and Larry since they were newborns. "They're our babies too," she'd say. "You know we went through this with you." And it was Martha who said, "Addy, you'll get pregnant on your wedding day. Innocent brides always get pregnant on their wedding day.
8. Martha knew before anyone else that I was pregnant. She finally told me at one of those family dinners that she had wanted me to wear her garter belt the day I got married so she came over to give it to me. She said my mother let her in, but I was asleep so she didn't leave it. Could she have seen Larry and me on the floor making love? The bedroom door was ajar. Anyone passing could have seen us. Or hear us. My God!
Upper right:
9. Luther was determined to build the house on Larry's land. And nothing I said would change his mind. In frustration I began to cry. But this time he got angry and began to yell. I'd never seen him yell at me like that. "Are you afraid of something? Tell me what is it? Is it Martha? Is it Larry? Is it that the twins might prefer them to us? He said, "Don't keep secrets from me Addy." he went on.
10. "It reminds me of Steve Mention, a man I served with in Korea. He was an informer to the other side. He was secretive. Nobody knew anything about him. It turned out he was the enemy. Sleeping and eating and fighting among us but not with us. One of the men found out he was a spy and killed him with his bare hands. I saw him do it. As a man of God I couldn't condone murder. But I also never told who did it. God rest his soul. He got what he deserved.
11. And you? Do you have something to tell me? Do you? He shouted. "Let's stop right here and find out if you have some secret you have to confess." Luther jammed on the brakes but his foot hit the accelerator instead, and over the embankment we went fifty feet down into the water below. There was no one around to see us go.
12. In that moment I knew my secret would never be told. .....
Lower right:
13. At our funeral, Martha dry eyed, is looking the picture of health, with Larry on one side and the twins, Larry and Luther Jr., on the other. She is now the mother she always wanted to be. And Larry is the father he always was. Luther and I are romantic memories: two people who met, fell in love, had an idyllic marriage, two beautiful sons, and died in an area called Lover's Lane.
14. Luther lost control of the car. It was an accident. He dropped off to sleep at the wheel, they said, and I was not looking. We were both exhausted from our service to the church. What a beautiful couple, a perfect family. Too young died but God knows best.
15. And Martha is repeating over and over, "It's all over now, sleep Addy. You and Luther sleep. The Lord will comfort you. Larry and I will take care of the boys. God bless you and keep you and was you of all your sins. Amen." ......
FAITH RINGGOLD © August 1986 NYC
Label Text
There is a story in this quilt. Addy and the Reverend Luther, a deceased wife and husband, are laid to rest at their funeral, surrounded by flowers and guests. Like pages of a book, panels of handwritten text told from Addy’s perspective recount the couple’s tragic and complex love story. Artist Faith Ringgold employs techniques from feminist art, modernist painting, storytelling, and quilting—a medium associated with women’s labor and craft, and with African American history. Her choice of medium is political and personal: her mother was a designer and dressmaker, and her great-great-great-grandmother was an enslaved woman who made quilts.
(Yinshi Lerman-Tan, 2020)
"I am not really a quilt maker. . . . But I love the
oldness of the medium. Quilt making fits in with
women's history, women's lifestyle and culture. What
I am trying to do with my story quilts is to bridge the
gap between painting and quilt making."
Faith Ringgold
The final sequence of a trilogy, this quilt uses text and images to tell a story of infidelity. The primary figures are Addy and the Reverend Luther, a deceased wife and husband who are shown in the composition's center, surrounded by guests at their funeral. In the text at the four corners, a story narrated by Addy reveals conflicts between her love for her husband and her guilt over having slept with his brother on her wedding day. As a result of her indiscretion, she gave birth to her brother-in-law's twins, but never confessed to her husband. To complicate things, her sister-in-law was wise to the situation, but never let on. In the end, Addy and Luther are killed in an automobile accident, just as the suspicious and angry Luther was about to coerce Addy into revealing her secret. With no simple resolution, the story raises open-ended questions about moral dilemmas relating to such topics as love and marriage, good and evil, or truth and deceit.
Ringgold made her first quilt in 1980, following an invitation to participate in an exhibition of contemporary quilts by women artists. She was assisted by her mother, who was an accomplished designer and dressmaker. By 1983, the artist recognized the medium's potential for story telling and began incorporating text passages, thereby giving attention to both visual and verbal narrative. The patterning that frames the narratives owes a debt to traditional quilt making and indigenous African art. Reflective of the artist's pioneering status in the feminist movement of the 1970s, Ringgold's story quilts narratives are characteristically told in a female voice.
(David Rubin, Label Text 2008)
Upper left:
THE FUNERAL: LOVER'S QUILT #3
We were on our way to Christmas dinner at Larry and Martha's new home. The twins went on ahead with them. We took the long way through Lover's Lane. There was some threatening family business to discuss and neither of us wanted to get there too soon. Larry was going to offer Luther half of his land to build a summer home and weekend retreat away from the parish in the city. Martha was against it. "Two brothers shouldn't live so close together. It will cause trouble in our families," she said.
2. I agreed. But the men were thinking the twins would enjoy being close to their aunt and uncle and that the city was becoming a dangerous place to raise two boys. Nobody ever mentioned me. They never did. I was just Reverend Luther's wife and as such I had a lot of work to do in the church. The Sunday school, the choir and the Mission Society. All of this kept me out of the house and the boys might suffer from lack of supervision as they grew older.
3. But living near Martha and Larry would place an undo strain on our family relations and in time our secret would get out. And Larry, cool as he was, would surely slip and look at me in that way, or do something that would appear suspicious. Martha knew anyway. And if we lived together on their land one day she would say something and then Luther would know too.
4. Martha was sick and needed someone to help her. Luther's family was close-mouthed with family matters so I didn't press him with what she had. O.K. Martha is sick and Reverend Campbell and Ma Campbell are too old to help much. And Martha's mother and father are dead. All she has in the world is Larry and us. We have to help her. But not this way. Martha was the one person in the world we could not afford to live near.
Lower left:
5. I could hardly stand to be around her at all. I knew she knew the twins were Larry's. That's what she was trying to tell me when I asked her why she cried so pitifully at our wedding. She said it was because Larry was unfaithful to her and Luther would be unfaithful to me too. That was the same as saying, "You'll get yours!"
6. When I was pregnant with the twins, Martha used to say Larry had morning sickness. "It's just sympathy,: she'd say. "Larry loves you and Luther so much he feels all your pain," And then she too started to have morning sickness, and thereafter spent most of her days in bed making clothes for the babies.
7. When they were born I didn't have to buy anything even though they were twins and we expected only one baby, we had clothes enough for two. She had the twins staying over night with her and Larry since they were newborns. "They're our babies too," she'd say. "You know we went through this with you." And it was Martha who said, "Addy, you'll get pregnant on your wedding day. Innocent brides always get pregnant on their wedding day.
8. Martha knew before anyone else that I was pregnant. She finally told me at one of those family dinners that she had wanted me to wear her garter belt the day I got married so she came over to give it to me. She said my mother let her in, but I was asleep so she didn't leave it. Could she have seen Larry and me on the floor making love? The bedroom door was ajar. Anyone passing could have seen us. Or hear us. My God!
Upper right:
9. Luther was determined to build the house on Larry's land. And nothing I said would change his mind. In frustration I began to cry. But this time he got angry and began to yell. I'd never seen him yell at me like that. "Are you afraid of something? Tell me what is it? Is it Martha? Is it Larry? Is it that the twins might prefer them to us? He said, "Don't keep secrets from me Addy." he went on.
10. "It reminds me of Steve Mention, a man I served with in Korea. He was an informer to the other side. He was secretive. Nobody knew anything about him. It turned out he was the enemy. Sleeping and eating and fighting among us but not with us. One of the men found out he was a spy and killed him with his bare hands. I saw him do it. As a man of God I couldn't condone murder. But I also never told who did it. God rest his soul. He got what he deserved.
11. And you? Do you have something to tell me? Do you? He shouted. "Let's stop right here and find out if you have some secret you have to confess." Luther jammed on the brakes but his foot hit the accelerator instead, and over the embankment we went fifty feet down into the water below. There was no one around to see us go.
12. In that moment I knew my secret would never be told. .....
Lower right:
13. At our funeral, Martha dry eyed, is looking the picture of health, with Larry on one side and the twins, Larry and Luther Jr., on the other. She is now the mother she always wanted to be. And Larry is the father he always was. Luther and I are romantic memories: two people who met, fell in love, had an idyllic marriage, two beautiful sons, and died in an area called Lover's Lane.
14. Luther lost control of the car. It was an accident. He dropped off to sleep at the wheel, they said, and I was not looking. We were both exhausted from our service to the church. What a beautiful couple, a perfect family. Too young died but God knows best.
15. And Martha is repeating over and over, "It's all over now, sleep Addy. You and Luther sleep. The Lord will comfort you. Larry and I will take care of the boys. God bless you and keep you and was you of all your sins. Amen." ......
FAITH RINGGOLD © August 1986 NYC
(Yinshi Lerman-Tan, 2020)
"I am not really a quilt maker. . . . But I love the
oldness of the medium. Quilt making fits in with
women's history, women's lifestyle and culture. What
I am trying to do with my story quilts is to bridge the
gap between painting and quilt making."
Faith Ringgold
The final sequence of a trilogy, this quilt uses text and images to tell a story of infidelity. The primary figures are Addy and the Reverend Luther, a deceased wife and husband who are shown in the composition's center, surrounded by guests at their funeral. In the text at the four corners, a story narrated by Addy reveals conflicts between her love for her husband and her guilt over having slept with his brother on her wedding day. As a result of her indiscretion, she gave birth to her brother-in-law's twins, but never confessed to her husband. To complicate things, her sister-in-law was wise to the situation, but never let on. In the end, Addy and Luther are killed in an automobile accident, just as the suspicious and angry Luther was about to coerce Addy into revealing her secret. With no simple resolution, the story raises open-ended questions about moral dilemmas relating to such topics as love and marriage, good and evil, or truth and deceit.
Ringgold made her first quilt in 1980, following an invitation to participate in an exhibition of contemporary quilts by women artists. She was assisted by her mother, who was an accomplished designer and dressmaker. By 1983, the artist recognized the medium's potential for story telling and began incorporating text passages, thereby giving attention to both visual and verbal narrative. The patterning that frames the narratives owes a debt to traditional quilt making and indigenous African art. Reflective of the artist's pioneering status in the feminist movement of the 1970s, Ringgold's story quilts narratives are characteristically told in a female voice.
(David Rubin, Label Text 2008)
Upper left:
THE FUNERAL: LOVER'S QUILT #3
We were on our way to Christmas dinner at Larry and Martha's new home. The twins went on ahead with them. We took the long way through Lover's Lane. There was some threatening family business to discuss and neither of us wanted to get there too soon. Larry was going to offer Luther half of his land to build a summer home and weekend retreat away from the parish in the city. Martha was against it. "Two brothers shouldn't live so close together. It will cause trouble in our families," she said.
2. I agreed. But the men were thinking the twins would enjoy being close to their aunt and uncle and that the city was becoming a dangerous place to raise two boys. Nobody ever mentioned me. They never did. I was just Reverend Luther's wife and as such I had a lot of work to do in the church. The Sunday school, the choir and the Mission Society. All of this kept me out of the house and the boys might suffer from lack of supervision as they grew older.
3. But living near Martha and Larry would place an undo strain on our family relations and in time our secret would get out. And Larry, cool as he was, would surely slip and look at me in that way, or do something that would appear suspicious. Martha knew anyway. And if we lived together on their land one day she would say something and then Luther would know too.
4. Martha was sick and needed someone to help her. Luther's family was close-mouthed with family matters so I didn't press him with what she had. O.K. Martha is sick and Reverend Campbell and Ma Campbell are too old to help much. And Martha's mother and father are dead. All she has in the world is Larry and us. We have to help her. But not this way. Martha was the one person in the world we could not afford to live near.
Lower left:
5. I could hardly stand to be around her at all. I knew she knew the twins were Larry's. That's what she was trying to tell me when I asked her why she cried so pitifully at our wedding. She said it was because Larry was unfaithful to her and Luther would be unfaithful to me too. That was the same as saying, "You'll get yours!"
6. When I was pregnant with the twins, Martha used to say Larry had morning sickness. "It's just sympathy,: she'd say. "Larry loves you and Luther so much he feels all your pain," And then she too started to have morning sickness, and thereafter spent most of her days in bed making clothes for the babies.
7. When they were born I didn't have to buy anything even though they were twins and we expected only one baby, we had clothes enough for two. She had the twins staying over night with her and Larry since they were newborns. "They're our babies too," she'd say. "You know we went through this with you." And it was Martha who said, "Addy, you'll get pregnant on your wedding day. Innocent brides always get pregnant on their wedding day.
8. Martha knew before anyone else that I was pregnant. She finally told me at one of those family dinners that she had wanted me to wear her garter belt the day I got married so she came over to give it to me. She said my mother let her in, but I was asleep so she didn't leave it. Could she have seen Larry and me on the floor making love? The bedroom door was ajar. Anyone passing could have seen us. Or hear us. My God!
Upper right:
9. Luther was determined to build the house on Larry's land. And nothing I said would change his mind. In frustration I began to cry. But this time he got angry and began to yell. I'd never seen him yell at me like that. "Are you afraid of something? Tell me what is it? Is it Martha? Is it Larry? Is it that the twins might prefer them to us? He said, "Don't keep secrets from me Addy." he went on.
10. "It reminds me of Steve Mention, a man I served with in Korea. He was an informer to the other side. He was secretive. Nobody knew anything about him. It turned out he was the enemy. Sleeping and eating and fighting among us but not with us. One of the men found out he was a spy and killed him with his bare hands. I saw him do it. As a man of God I couldn't condone murder. But I also never told who did it. God rest his soul. He got what he deserved.
11. And you? Do you have something to tell me? Do you? He shouted. "Let's stop right here and find out if you have some secret you have to confess." Luther jammed on the brakes but his foot hit the accelerator instead, and over the embankment we went fifty feet down into the water below. There was no one around to see us go.
12. In that moment I knew my secret would never be told. .....
Lower right:
13. At our funeral, Martha dry eyed, is looking the picture of health, with Larry on one side and the twins, Larry and Luther Jr., on the other. She is now the mother she always wanted to be. And Larry is the father he always was. Luther and I are romantic memories: two people who met, fell in love, had an idyllic marriage, two beautiful sons, and died in an area called Lover's Lane.
14. Luther lost control of the car. It was an accident. He dropped off to sleep at the wheel, they said, and I was not looking. We were both exhausted from our service to the church. What a beautiful couple, a perfect family. Too young died but God knows best.
15. And Martha is repeating over and over, "It's all over now, sleep Addy. You and Luther sleep. The Lord will comfort you. Larry and I will take care of the boys. God bless you and keep you and was you of all your sins. Amen." ......
FAITH RINGGOLD © August 1986 NYC
Not on view
In Collection(s)
The San Antonio Museum of Art is in the process of digitizing its permanent collection. This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect SAMA's complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of such records is ongoing.
This resource has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the Human Endeavor.
